An Oath of Brothers. Morgan RiceЧитать онлайн книгу.
the door as if illuminating the entrance to another world.
“Trust, my lady,” he answered finally, “is born of need, not of want. And it is a very precarious thing.”
Chapter Seven
Darius stood in the battlefield, holding a sword made of steel, and looked all around him, taking in the landscape. It had a surreal quality. Even seeing it with his own eyes, he could not believe what had just happened. They had defeated the Empire. He, alone, with a few hundred villagers, without any real weapons – and with the help of Gwendolyn’s few hundred men – had defeated this professional army of hundreds of Empire soldiers. They had donned the finest armor, had wielded the finest weapons, had had zertas at their disposal. And he, Darius, barely armed, had led the battle that had defeated them all, the first victory against the Empire in history.
Here, in this place, where he had expected to die defending Loti’s honor, he now stood victorious.
A conqueror.
As Darius surveyed the field, he saw intermingled with the Empire corpses the bodies of scores of his own villagers, dozens dead, and his joy was tampered with sorrow. He flexed his muscles and felt fresh wounds himself, sword slashes in his biceps and thighs, and felt the sting of the lashes still on his back. He thought of the retaliation to come and knew their victory had come at a price.
But then again, he mused, all freedom did.
Darius sensed motion and he turned to see approaching him his friends, Raj and Desmond, wounded but, he was relieved to see, alive. He could see in their eyes that they looked at him differently – that all of his people now looked at him differently. They looked at him with respect – more than respect, with awe. Like a living legend. They had all seen what he had done, standing up to the Empire alone. And defeating them all.
They no longer looked to him as a boy. They now looked to him as a leader. A warrior. It was a look he had never expected to see in these older boys’ eyes, in the villagers’ eyes. He had always been the one overlooked, the one that no one had expected anything from.
Coming up alongside him, joining Raj and Desmond, were dozens of his brothers in arms, boys whom he had trained and sparred with day after day, perhaps fifty of them, brushing off their wounds, rising to their feet, and congregating around him. They all looked to him, standing there, holding his steel sword, covered in wounds, with awe. And with hope.
Raj stepped forward and embraced him, and one at a time, his other brothers in arms embraced him as well.
“That was reckless,” Raj said with a smile. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“I thought for sure you would surrender,” Desmond said.
“I can hardly believe we are all standing here,” said Luzi.
They looked about in wonder, surveying the landscape, as if they all had been dropped down on a foreign planet. Darius looked at all the dead bodies, at all the fine armor and weaponry glistening in the sun; he heard birds cawing, and looked up to see the vultures already circling.
“Gather their weapons,” Darius heard himself command, taking charge. It was a deep voice, a deeper one than he had ever used, and it carried an air of authority he had never recognized in himself. “And bury our dead.”
His men listened, all of them fanning out, going soldier to soldier, scavenging them, each of them choosing the finest weapons: some took swords, others maces, flails, daggers, axes, and war hammers. Darius held up the sword in his hand, the one he had taken from the commander, and admired it in the sun. He admired its weight, its elaborate shaft and blade. Real steel. Something he thought he would never have a chance to hold in his lifetime. Darius intended to put it to good use, to use it to kill as many Empire men as he could.
“Darius!” came a voice he knew well.
He turned to see Loti burst through the crowd, tears in her eyes, rushing toward him past all the men. She rushed forward and embraced him, holding him tight, her hot tears pouring down his neck.
He embraced her back, as she clung to him.
“I shall never forget,” she said, between tears, leaning in close and whispering in his ear. “I shall never forget what you have done this day.”
She kissed him, and he kissed her back, as she cried and laughed at the same time. He was so relieved to see her alive, too, to hold her, to know this nightmare, at least for now, was behind them. To know that the Empire could not touch her. As he held her, he knew he would do it all again a million times over for her.
“Brother,” came a voice.
Darius turned and was thrilled to see his sister, Sandara, step forward, joined by Gwendolyn and the man Sandara loved, Kendrick. Darius noticed the blood running down Kendrick’s arm, the fresh nicks in his armor and on his sword, and he felt a rush of gratitude. He knew that if it hadn’t been for Gwendolyn, Kendrick, and their people, he and his people surely would have died on the battlefield today.
Loti stood back as Sandara stepped forward and embraced him, and he hugged her back.
“I owe you all a great debt,” Darius said, looking at them all. “I and all of my people. You came back for us when you did not need to. You are true warriors.”
Kendrick stepped forward and placed a hand on Darius’s shoulder.
“It is you who are a true warrior, my friend. You displayed great valor on the battlefield today. God has rewarded your valor with this victory.”
Gwendolyn stepped forward, and Darius bowed his head as she did.
“Justice has triumphed today over evil and brutality,” she said. “I take personal pleasure, for many reasons, in watching your victory and in your allowing us to take part in it. I know that my husband, Thorgrin, would, too.”
“Thank you, my lady,” he said, touched. “I have heard many great things about Thorgrin, and I hope to meet him some day.”
Gwendolyn nodded.
“And what are your plans for your people now?” she asked.
Darius thought, realizing he had no idea; he hadn’t been thinking that far ahead. He hadn’t even thought he would survive.
Before Darius could respond there was a sudden commotion, and there burst forth from the crowd a face he knew well: there approached Zirk, one of Darius’s trainers, bloodied by battle, wearing no shirt with his bulging muscles. He was followed by a half dozen village elders and a large number of villagers, and he did not look pleased.
He glared down on Darius condescendingly.
“And are you proud of yourself?” he asked disparagingly. “Look at what you’ve done. Look at how many of our people died here today. They all died senseless deaths, all good men, all dead because of you. All because of your pride, your hubris, your love for this girl.”
Darius reddened, his anger flaring up. Zirk had always had it in for him, from the first day he’d met him. For some reason, he had always seemed to feel threatened by Darius.
“They are not dead because of me,” Darius replied. “They had a chance to live because of me. To truly live. They died at the Empire’s hands, not my own.”
Zirk shook his head.
“Wrong,” he retorted. “If you had surrendered, as we had told you to do, we all would be missing a thumb today. Instead, some of us are missing our lives. Their blood is on your head.”
“You know nothing!” Loti cried out, defending him. “You were all just too scared to do what Darius did for you!”
“Do you think it’s going to end here?” Zirk continued. “The Empire has millions of men behind this. You killed a few. So what? When they find out, they will return with fivefold these men. And next time, each and every one of us will be slaughtered – and tortured first. You have signed all of our death sentences.”
“You are wrong!” Raj called out. “He has given you a chance at life. A chance at honor. A victory that you did not